One of the longest-running sagas in the history of Florida wetlands protection took an interesting turn this month, as the EPA joined a federal judge in criticizing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Since the 1950s, miners have been using dynamite to blast apart wetlands near Everglades to dig out the limestone rock beneath them. The rock is used in cement for building roads, shopping malls, and so forth. What's left when the miners are done are 80-foot-deep pits full of water -- and thus the mining area has been dubbed "the Lake Belt."

Ten mining companies have been trying to expand their reach to blow up another 50,000 acres of wetlands, but EPA objections led the Corps to scale back the permits it issued in 2002 to just 5,400 acres. One of the arguments for issuing the permits was that the mining pits could someday become reservoirs for use in the Everglades restoration plan -- in other words, by letting the miners destroy part of the River of Grass, the miners would help save it.

A coalition of environmental groups sued, and in 2006 Senior U.S. District Judge William Hoeveler issued a blistering opinion that said the Corps had failed to do its job in just about every way it could fail. He was particularly critical of the Corps' failure to take into account Miami-Dade County's concerns that mining so close to the county's wellfield could taint the water supply.

As we noted in "Paving Paradise," the miners appealed Hoeveler's ruling but also enlisted the help of the state Department of Transportation and the Florida Chamber of Commerce in a publicity campaign. They launched a Web site called “Keep Florida Rockin’” to spread the word of dire consequences should they be shut down: “A shutdown of so-called Lake Belt mining would cripple the state’s ongoing efforts to keep Florida moving, and would risk bringing Florida’s booming economy to
a screeching halt.” Fans could buy “Keep Florida Rockin’” coffee mugs and T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan, “A Mine Is a Terrible Thing to Waste.”

The upshot: The Corps, under Hoeveler's orders, is now working on an environmental impact statement. Meanwhile the miners want permits to blow up another 6,800 acres of wetlands bordering Everglades National Park and Miami-Dade County's biggest source of drinking water. Although he was overturned on appeal, Hoeveler came back seven months ago with a new order that overturned all 10 permits.

...and into this steps the Environmental Protection Agency. "The EPA, in a letter sent last week to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, recommends denying nine requests for new mining permits, saying the rock pits would destroy wildlife habitat, drain water from adjacent Everglades marshes and potentially degrade water quality," reports Curtis Morgan of the Miami Herald.

The four-page letter signed by Acting Regional Administrator A. Stanley Meiburg reads a lot like a threat by the EPA to use its veto power -- that rara avis of the Clean Water Act, used only 12 times since 1972 (and not at all in Florida since 1988). The EPA labels the wetlands "aquatic resources of national importance," because they are part of the Everglades and aid in the local water supply. And the EPA says the mitigation proposed for making up for the destruction falls far short of what should be required.

But an EPA spokesman told the Herald that the letter was just routine, and the agency ''is not proposing to halt rock mining in the Lake Belt.'' Stay tuned. This could get interesting.